Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Murder or Suicide?

Matt and Kari Baker appeared to have a
perfect life in Waco, Texas: a house in the suburbs, two beautiful
daughters and church on Sundays with Matt at the pulpit.

But that existence was shattered when
almost two years ago, when Kari was 31 years old, she apparently
committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. There was a typed
unsigned suicide note.

Matt, received the sympathy and
compassion of his community — until he was charged with his wife’s
murder. Now the 36-year-old preacher must defend himself to an
increasingly doubtful congregation and prosecutor.

“There was never a doubt that I loved her
or that she loved me. I never doubted that for a moment,” Matt said.
“She had a wonderful smile, great personality. I don’t think my love
ever stopped for her and it won’t.”

Although Kari had a full life, not only
as a mother and wife, but as an elementary school teacher, Matt said
there were signs of trouble.

It began with a monumental tragedy in the
young couple’s life: the loss of their second daughter. Kassidy, who
was born a decade ago, suffered a brain tumor when she was 1 and died
at 16 months. Everyone agrees that the death drove to bouts of terrible
grief.

“I didn’t think she was depressed,” Matt said. “I thought it was just a deep sadness.”

Suicide or Murder?

The night Kari died, Matt told
investigators about Kari’s sadness over the loss of her daughter and
they quickly decided the death was a suicide. A lone detective took
photographs of the scene and the justice of the peace — who didn’t come
to the house — made a ruling of suicide over the phone and without an
autopsy.

Just days after Kari was buried, her family, recovering from shock,
told everyone who would listen that suicide was not in Kari’s nature.
She had two daughters, Kensi and Grace, and loved her job at Spring
Valley Elementary School.
“This just came out of nowhere,” said Nancy Lanham, Kari’s aunt. “There is no way Kari would’ve done this.”
Lanham also says Kari was excited for her future.
“The day of her death, she had gone in for an interview, that went, it went really well,” Lanham said.
Matt’s mother, Barbara, remains convinced that her daughter-in-law
took her own life. “Suicide is an answer to pain you can’t get rid of,”
she said. “There was pain that Kari was undergoing that she either
couldn’t or didn’t get the proper help for and that was not a bad
answer for her.”
The churchgoing people of Waco viewed Matt as a grieving widower left
to raise his two surviving daughters and to pick up the pieces after
these two terrible tragedies.

(ABC)

Which is why it was a shock to Waco, Matt’s church and his family
when months after Kari’s death, the justice of the peace changed his
ruling on the case. Matt was arrested and charged with first degree
murder.

‘Never Once Did I Solicit Sex’

“I did not kill my wife. I did not hurt my wife. I loved her,” Matt said.
But did Matt have a secret life that may have led to his wife’s death?
Lora Wilson was a freshman at Baylor University along with Matt in
the early 1990s. They both worked in the athletic department as
trainers where she says Matt assaulted her in the locker room at Floyd
Casey Stadium.
“He didn’t stop with the kiss,” Wilson said. “He didn’t stop with the
touching until he was ready to stop. Till he had gotten whatever it
is he got.”
Matt remembers the incident, but denies assaulting Wilson. He says it was the fantasy of a hysterical coed.
“There was a group of us working and when we finished, I don’t know
what happened to her. All I can tell you is when she left the facility,
was in tears, but nothing I did,” Matt said.
“20/20″ documented six other complaints against Matt: from a female
custodian from the First Baptist Church of Waco, who says he grabbed her
sexually; a teenage girl from the same church who claimed he spoke to
her in a sexually provocative manner; and at the YMCA where he
supervised the day camp, four young women complained to management of
improper sexual conduct.
Matt denies all of this, including any claims of assault.
“I can say this and I’ll say it again that … never once did I
solicit sex from anybody,” Matt said. “But can there have been things
that have been said that [were] misconstrued? Possible, but never once
did I solicit sex from them.”
What really turned Kari’s family against him was the revelation that
Matt had given Kari’s cell phone to a young woman from his church whom
he called every day. The police affidavit outlining Matt’s arrest
accuses him of having an affair with this woman and even claims they
were seen shopping for engagement rings together. The affidavit states
Matt’s motive for murder was to continue this new relationship.
Matt claims the relationship was platonic and he and the young women were buying earrings for his daughters.

The Sleeping Pills

The police affidavit also claims Kari may have suspected her life was
in danger. The affidavit says Kari believed Matt was having an affair
and that she told her counselor she found crushed pills in his
briefcase and was afraid he was going to poison her because he was
having an affair. Police say they found evidence on Matt’s computers
that he was searching the Internet about sleeping pill poisoning.
Matt says that he has no idea where the crushed pills came from and
that he searched the Internet because he was trying to protect his wife
who he says was increasingly dependent on sleeping pills.
“I did research to see can you overdose, is that even a possibility
that I need to worry about, my wife overdosing on sleeping pills,” Matt
said.
And Matt asked that if Kari’s counselor really believed he would hurt Kari, why didn’t she do more to protect her?
“She [Kari] never looked me in the face and said I think you might hurt me,” Matt said.

Contradictions

In his interview with “20/20,” Matt seemed to contradict himself when discussing who found the suicide note.
On the phone with the 911 operator, he said he found the suicide
note, but during his interview, he said a police officer found it first
and gave it to him.
And there are other troubling details about what Matt told police and “20/20″ about the events leading up to that night.
“It’s 11 o’clock. She goes, ‘well, go get this movie for me and gas up cause we have a busy tomorrow,’” Matt said.
Matt’s 45-minute trip was confirmed by surveillance cameras and
receipts. When he got home at midnight, he found his wife dead and nude
behind a locked bedroom door.
Tom Bevel is a former Oklahoma City homicide detective hired by
Kari’s family as a crime scene analyst. Bevel says paramedics told him
that lividity, a reddish rash that normally forms an hour to three
hours after death, was just forming on Kari’s body when they arrived.
He says this indicates that Kari must have died long before Matt left
the house for a movie.

Circumstantial Evidence

Bevel points to other red flags like the locked bedroom door and the
typed suicide note, which are rare in suicide cases. He also finds it
suspicious that the first thing Matt did before calling 911 or
attempting CPR was to try and put Kari’s clothes back on.
“I knew my wife well enough, that would’ve been embarrassing for her.
I did not want the EMTs to come in and see her naked,” Matt said.
Although there is a lot of circumstantial evidence, the biggest roadblock to a conviction is answering how did Kari die?
The prosecution’s theory is that Matt drugged Kari with sleeping
pills and then suffocated her with a pillow. In an autopsy performed
months after Kari’s death, there was no sign of sleeping pills in her
stomach. There was, however, evidence of sleeping pills found in her
tissues, though that does not determine how many sleeping pills she
actually took. The autopsy also failed to reveal any evidence of
suffocation or choking.

“I think it is something that in our
society, we hang that hat with the jury and let them look at all of the
physical evidence that is there, those issues that you’re bringing up
and it is up to them to make that decision,” said Bevel.

When asked, Matt repeatedly denies killing his wife.

“I loved her. She’s the mother of my
children,” Matt said. “We struggled after the death of our child and
like every marriage you have your ups and your downs, you have your
good days and your bad days. But I loved her and I miss her and I did
not hurt my wife.”

BREAKING NEWS: Matt Baker sentenced to 65 years in prison

Matt Baker has been sentenced to 65 years
in prison. Baker said he believes he is still innocent and that
the jury has made a mistake in this decision. He was accused of killing
his wife and trying to cover it up as a suicide.

Jurors deliberated for two hours before
imposing the sentence for 38-year-old Baker. He faced from probation to
life in prison for slipping his wife sleeping pills and suffocating her
in 2006. During closing arguments, prosecutor Crawford Long who
previously called Baker a “murdering minister,” said he killed his wife
in “cold-blooded cruelty” and seemed to take pleasure in getting away
with it.

Defense attorney Harold Danford said
Baker “did some things he’s not proud of” but reminded jurors that
Baker is eligible for probation because he had not previously been
convicted of a felony.

Several witnesses took the stand Thursday
morning in the sentencing phase for former pastor Matt Baker. They
shared aggressive sexual encounters they had with the convicted
murderer.

The first person called to testify was
woman who worked with Baker in 1996 at the Waco Family YMCA. She said
she was 17 at the time and recalled an incident in which she and Baker
were working alone in a room. She says he came on to her, grabbing her
breasts and trying to kiss her.

She also said she didn’t report it until
six months later, when the YMCA began asking if anyone had similar
encounters with Baker.

The second witness asked to testify was a
high school classmate of Baker who told jurors they dated in high
school. She said one time while he was visiting home from college, he
came on to her at her parents home. She said she had to use all of her
strength to get him off of her.

Finally, a friend of Kari’s cousin told
jurors that just before the Bakers’ daughter Kassidy died, they visited
her at Cook’s Children’s Hospital in Dallas. She said while waiting
for Kari and Kari’s cousin, baker approached her in the children’s game
room.

She said that was the first time she had
met him and added he invited her to go to a room he said the hospital
provided for parents of terminally ill children, placing his hand on her
leg.

Wednesday night, after seven and a half hours into deliberation, the jury in the Matt Baker trial returned a guilty verdict.

They found enough evidence to convict the
former pastor for murdering his wife Kari Baker, who Matt drugged and
suffocated in 2006.

As Judge Ralph Strother prepared to read
the jury’s decision, Kari Baker’s family and friends braced, tissues in
hand, waiting for the verdict. Nearly all began sobbing upon hearing
the word “guilty.”

Matt looked stunned. He expressed no
emotion when the verdict was read. He said nothing as sheriff’s
deputies escorted him out of the courtroom and took him to the McLennan
County Jail.

No parties involved commented after the
trial because a gag order is still in effect through the sentencing
phase, which begins tomorrow.

Life in prison is the most Baker can get
for his crime. His lawyers have not indicated whether or not they
would appeal the verdict.

Vanessa Bulls, who testified to how Baker
killed his wife, was placed Wednesday on paid administrative leave
from her teaching position in Harker Heights.

Seven hours into jury deliberation,
Defense Attorney Guy James Gray called for a mistrial. Judge Ralph
Strother quickly denying his request. Gray states the jury has been
questioning the testimony by Vanessa Bulls concerning a March 30, 2009
interview she had with Detective Rodriguez. Gray said during the trial,
he tendered the tape as a prior inconsistent statement. He said the
note from the jury shows they are having a question about the
inconsistency and now that it’s too late to render it into the
record, Gray called for a mistrial.

Strother replied with a stern “denied.”

The jury continues to deliberate.

Judge Ralph Strother received a fifth
note from jurors this evening. They asked for a transcript of Vanessa
Bull’s testimony regarding the time she spent with Matt at his
daughter’s birthday party, just two weeks after Kari’s death. The judge
said the court could comply with that request but that it would take a
significant amount of time to find that information and put it in a
transcript form. He also instructed them to continue their deliberations
while waiting for the transcript.

The jury is now being fed.

The jury sent out their fourth note just
before 7:30 this evening. The note asked Judge Strother if a transcript
of Vanessa Bull’s entire testimony could be provided to them. The
Judge sent them a note stating that could only be done if there was a
disagreement among them regarding the testimony and that only the
particular section they disagreed on could be provided to them.

The jury also asked for dinner. Judge
Strother said he would wait to see what their response was to his note
before “providing dinner to the jury at the taxpayer’s expense.”

Just after 6:30 this evening the jury
sent out a third note to Judge Ralph Strother, asking if they could
exclude the “suffocation” part of the charges against Matt Baker.

The Judge told them “you need to consider both the rule of law and the charge you were given” in determining guilt or innocence.

Baker was charged with murdering Kari
Baker by “administering drugs to her and suffocating her with a
pillow,” according to the Grand Jury indictment from March of 2009.

Around 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, the jury
began deliberations in the Matt Baker murder trial. If convicted Baker
faces up to life in prison.

Defense Attorney Guy James Gray called
his first and only witness to the stand shortly after 8:30 Wednesday
morning. Brent Watson, a forensic scientist with the Texas Department of
Public Safety, testified on the probability of DNA he found on the
Unisom bottle and alleged suicide note found at the scene.

After the defense rested their case, the
state presented additional evidence of e-mails between Matt and Kari
and replayed the 911 tape of the night Kari Baker died.

The judge has released the jury to prepare the court’s charge. Closing arguments will follow.